I am because we are

World Social Work Day provides an opportunity for us to explore how social work is practised and experienced around the world. This year, the theme ‘Ubuntu – I am because we are’ encourages us to look to Africa for inspiration.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu philosophy derives from the indigenous black populations of Sub-Saharan Africa. It is commonly represented by communal ideals and relationality – people thrive through their relationships with others. It can be readily understood by the common maxims:

I am because we are

A person is a person through other persons

It takes a village to raise a child

The latter maxim indicates that indigenous childrearing practices in Africa are different than in the West. Children achieve personhood through other people, which mean that they grow through communal and harmonious relationships with others. Parenting is not an individualised practice but the responsibility of those beyond a family as well as those within it. The community has a role in protecting children, socialising them and nurturing their identity.

Ubuntu is a communal way of life which challenges Western notions of individualism. It is an apt choice by the International Federation of Social Workers for a theme for World Social Work Day. As the Black Lives Matter Movement fights to end white supremacy, it is time to explore how Ubuntu philosophy can inform social work practice, policy and research in the UK.

Community social work

Ubuntu is a communal way of life which deems that society must be run for the sake of all. This requires co-operation, sharing and ensuring that the needs of all are met.

Ubuntu presents a challenge to social work in the UK, which is infused with the dominant ideology of individualism. Social work practice focuses on the needs of individuals and putting plans in place to meet them. While care and support plans sometimes do involve the wider community, their focus is at the individual, rather than communal, level. They address individual need rather than communal need.

Community social work is not common in the UK. Some voluntary and third sector agencies undertake community development work, but there is limited social work involvement in this. We need robust community social work models which are empirically grounded, sit within our value base and resonate with our international partners. A new community social work practice needs to be developed which can incorporate both individual and communal models of practice.

A community-centred model needs to be developed which foregrounds local decision-making and takes a holistic view of local communities. It may require a statutory footing to ensure that it can be appropriately resourced and made available to every community. It is likely to require considerable political will to implement, and probably wider social change to make visible the hidden latent assets within communities. However, there is an opportunity here for social work to take a lead in shaping a new future for all.

In this kind of existence, one person’s personhood and identity is fulfilled and complemented by the other person’s personhood. Each person is because the other person is. Each person exists because the other person exists.

P.T. Mtuze (1999) Hidden presences in the spirituality of the Amaxhosa of the Eastern Cape and the impact of Christianity on them. Unpublished thesis, Rhodes University, South Africa, p. 84.

Shared decision-making

Ubuntu involves compassion, caring, sharing and respectful community life. Amicable personal relationships are at its heart, with the pursuit of consensus and reconciliation among its key objectives. The focus of decision-making is on finding agreement. Extensive discussions are held which provides every person with a platform until solidarity is found. Decisions are made cognisant of the values and norms of that community.

While social work has embraced co-production as a model, Ubuntu philosophy takes shared decision-making to a different level entirely. Power is held by the community as a whole, not by any one individual or group of individuals. Once a decision is made, reinforced by the solidarity of those who made it, the community share a collective responsibility for putting it into action.

In most decision-making processes, professionals such as social workers hold the power. Although genuine attempts are made to equalise power relationships – and approaches such as Family Group Conferences can help to achieve this – individual social workers remain accountable for decisions they make rather than communities as a whole.

Allowing Ubuntu to seep into Western social work, decision-making would need to become more of a collective responsibility, encouraging discussion and seeking consensus. While this may extend decision-making processes – which under the current resource constraints may be unrealistic – this could become an aspiration for us to strive towards.

The emphasis is on togetherness … as a cooperative and community we are heading for the same end result … we can share what we have, our thoughts included

Broodryk, J. (2006). Ubuntu African life coping skills: Theory and practice.

Equality

Inequality is anathema to Ubuntu. In a country such as the UK where people possess vastly different quantities of wealth, income or possessions, communal life becomes more difficult. Covid has exposed inequalities which have widened inexorably over the last decade, with black and ethnic minority groups particularly affected by high death rates associated with poverty. The gap between rich and poor is growing in the UK, which has consequences for us all.

Tackling inequality is primarily the responsibility of Government. Progressive taxation, wealth transfers, closing tax loopholes and revitalising the welfare state will all help to reduce the gap between rich and poor, but these require Government action. While this doesn’t look likely at present, there are actions we can take.

We can campaign for a fairer, more equal society. For example, consider joining The Equality Trust and work with others to build a social movement for change.

We can ensure that the people we work with claim their full entitlement to welfare benefits. We can support people to increase their income and improve their life opportunities through education and decent employment. We can work with communities to become more inclusive and egalitarian places to live and work by supporting asset sharing and the pooling of resources.

This may sound like quite a radical, or some may say unachievable, agenda for social work. But change is not possible without a vision and I believe Ubuntu helps us to glimpse a different, better world that is worth striving for.

Ubuntu/unhu/humaneness includes the stipulations of the philosophy that: ‘…places emphasis on values of human solidarity, empathy, human dignity and the humaneness in every person, and that holds that a person is a person through others’

Zimbabwe Code of Ethics of Social Workers (2012), p.1